some people on the net already use a cd(), but most of them break 'cd -' functionality, that is "go back where you have been previosly", or 'cd' which is "go back home". This cd() copes with that. Also when given a file name, go to the directory where this file is in. cd() { if [[ -n ${*} ]] then if [[ s${*}e == s-e ]] then builtin cd - elif [[ ! -d ${*} ]] then builtin cd "${*%/*}" else builtin cd "${*}" fi else builtin cd ~ fi ls -la }

many have aliases like: alias ...="cd ../../" alias ....="cd ../../../" and so furth. ..() mitigates to need for those aliases, see sample output for an example # .. -> go up 1 directory # .. 4 -> go up 4 directories ..() { local DIR='' declare -i NUM=0 if [[ ${1} =~ ^[1-9][0-9]*$ ]] then while (( ${NUM} < ${1:-1} )) do DIR="${DIR}../" NUM=$(( ${NUM} + 1 )) done else DIR=.. fi cd "${DIR}" } Show Sample Output

Thanks to the great grml team for this func! You really should look at their shell configs for further usefull things! http://git.grml.org/?p=grml-etc-core.git;a=blob_plain;f=etc/grml/script-functions;h=4d6bcea8f9beae83abd08f44155d299ea54a4a9f;hb=HEAD # {{{ check for availability of program(s) # usage example: # check4progs [-s,-q,--quiet,--silent] arg [arg .... argn] # # with option given either of: # -s,-q,--quiet,--silent # # check for available progs but produce no output check4progs() { [ -n "${ZSH_VERSION}" ] && emulate -L sh local RTN=0 local oldifs="${IFS}" local ARG d found local VERBOSE=1 case ${1} in -q | -s | --quiet | --silent) VERBOSE=0 shift 1 ;; *) ;; esac while [ $# -gt 0 ] do ARG="$1" shift found=0 IFS=: for d in $PATH do if [ -x "${d}/${ARG}" ] then found=1 break fi done IFS="${oldifs}" # check for availability if [ ${found} -eq 0 ] then if [ ${VERBOSE} -eq 1 ] then printf "%s: binary not found\n" "${ARG}" >&2 fi RTN=1 fi done # return non zero, if at least one prog is missing! return $RTN } # }}} Show Sample Output

shopt-set() { declare -i RTN=0 local ARG='' while (( ${#} > 0 )) do ARG="${1}" shift 1 if ! builtin shopt -s "${ARG}" 1>/dev/null 2>&1 then RTN=1 fi done return ${RTN} } Show Sample Output

Actually your func will find both files and directorys that contain ${1}. This one only find files. ..and to look only for dirs: finddir() { find . -type d -iname "*${*}*" ; }

David thanks for that grep inside! here is mine version: psgrep() { case ${1} in ( -E | -e ) local EXTENDED_REGEXP=1 shift 1 ;; *) local EXTENDED_REGEXP=0 ;; esac if [[ -z ${*} ]] then echo "psgrep - grep for process(es) by keyword" >&2 echo "Usage: psgrep [-E|-e] ... " >&2 echo "" >&2 echo "option [-E|-e] enables full extended regexp support" >&2 echo "without [-E|-e] plain strings are looked for" >&2 return 1 fi \ps -eo 'user,pid,pcpu,command' w | head -n1 local ARG='' if (( ${EXTENDED_REGEXP} == 0 )) then while (( ${#} > 0 )) do ARG="${1}" shift 1 local STRING=${ARG} local LENGTH=$(expr length ${STRING}) local FIRSCHAR=$(echo $(expr substr ${STRING} 1 1)) local REST=$(echo $(expr substr ${STRING} 2 ${LENGTH})) \ps -eo 'user,pid,pcpu,command' w | grep "[${FIRSCHAR}]${REST}" done else \ps -eo 'user,pid,pcpu,command' w | grep -iE "(${*})" fi }

hgrep() { if [[ ${#} -eq 0 ]] then printf "usage:\nhgrep [--nonum | -N | -n | --all-nonum | -an | -na] STRING\n" return 1 fi while [[ ${#} -gt 0 ]] do case ${1} in --nonum | -N | -n | --all-nonum | -an | -na) builtin history | sed 's/^[[:blank:]]\+[[:digit:]]\{1,5\}[[:blank:]]\{2\}//' | grep -iE "(${*:2})" break ;; *) builtin history | grep -iE "(${*})" break ;; esac done } 'hgrep -n' helps in using full grep support, e.g. search for _beginning_ of specific commands, see example output Show Sample Output

Simply sourcing .bashrc does not function correctly when you edit it and change an alias for a function or the other way round with the *same name*. I therefor use this function. Prior to re-sourcing .bashrc it unsets all aliases and functions.